Senator Chuck Grassley made the following statement after the Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General released a scathing report that showed mismanagement of money used in undercover investigations. The report included an example of a FISA warrant being halted because of an unpaid phone bill as well as an employee stealing $25,000 in confidential case funds.
Following the release of the report, Grassley immediately sent a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller inquiring why the Bureau was not implementing every recommendation by the inspector general.
Grassley has long been a watchdog of the FBI and conducted oversight of the Bureau since the mid 1990s.
Here is Grassley’s comment.
"Today's report from the Inspector General raises serious questions about the FBI and the management of highly sensitive national security investigations. This is yet another example of gross mismanagement by the FBI and the federal government. It's one thing to have the lights shut off, but to lose a FISA warrant and potentially compromise national security because of sloppy accounting is inexcusable."
Here is a copy of the text of Grassley’s letter.
Via Electronic Transmission
The Honorable Robert S. Mueller, III
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20535
Dear Director Mueller:
I was extremely disturbed at the findings detailed in the latest report from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) on the mismanagement of confidential case funds. According to the OIG, the FBI’s “late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence[.]” The report found that in at least one instance, “intercept information required by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order was halted due to untimely payment.” Shockingly, poor financial controls also allowed an FBI agent to steal $25,000 in confidential case funds and a sample of employees dealing with such funds found that nearly half of them had “indications of personal financial problems, such as late loan payments and bankruptcies.”
I have just received a copy of the full 87-page report. However, the 8-page summary of the findings released earlier today indicates that in order to remedy these and other serious problems outlined in the report, the OIG made 16 recommendations. The FBI rejected four of its recommendations as “unfeasible or too cost prohibitive.” I would like to request a briefing from the FBI on its plans to correct the problems identified in this report and specifically an explanation of why the FBI is rejecting certain OIG recommendations.
I would appreciate your reply by January 25, 2008.
Sincerely,
Chuck Grassley